


She - Wolves and Sirens

by lechatnoir



Series: Blood Smiles and Alabaster Hearts [2]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Vengence, Spartacus: War of the Damned
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Gen, Multi, Sparty Femslash February
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lechatnoir/pseuds/lechatnoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were she-wolves and sirens hidden among their ranks, diamonds and knives with edges sharp as alabaster stone, ready to cut and to devour, to entice and seduce.  They were ready to love and kill and drag them all down to the fiery pits of Hell, spitting in Rome's face as she burnt to the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ivory Blood

i.

She remembers a steel gaze – piercing, eyes cold as iron and a voice as loud as the snarling wolves that prowl on the remains of the dead. 

She remembers molten eyes, olive skin and an arm that can caress her skin gently and shoot an arrow to lodge itself in the enemy’s throat at a second’s notice.

They were intricate puzzles, fixed to each other through paper-thin fabric and torn shackles that dragged on from the burning empire of Rome. They would drink and laugh and feel the sand dig itself into their backs as they would wrestle and claw at each other like cats, arching and touching and dancing a dance that needed no language barriers, only eyes that blaze with fire – an inferno that will burn Rome to ashes.

They don’t see death creeping towards them.

ii.

It’s the sound of girlish laughter, the swish of the bodices and fabric that is light as air against their skin – it doesn’t cover much, and it’s threadbare, causing the winds to cast goosebumps on their skin as they walk and wait on their Domina – tending to each and every whim that the woman may request of them.

They know their place – at her feet, eyes downcast at the tiled floor, shiny with oils and scents that were meant to relax and sooth the mind. They had no real worth, they were not people.

They were simply containers, waiting to be filed with some Roman’s cock and the sound of gruff gasps and groans of a pig that cares nothing for them.

They simmer in silence, watch each other like hidden flowers in an abandoned temple up on a mountain top, away from the smells and bubbling poison that laces each and every word that their Domina says to the other Romans that enter their ludus. 

Someday perhaps, they’ll see freedom.

For now they pick up their broken dreams and stifle their screams in the dark. 

iii. 

It should have been her – not Diona. Diona was sweet, with eyes as wide and as bright as the new leaves that bloom in the spring. Now they were hollow, dull – broken shards of glass, jagged ends that fray and cut into each word that she spews out of her half dead mouth, half dead eyes.

She is slowly killing herself in her own poison, and she doesn’t care. 

Naevia can only stand and watch and worry, worry until she starts to feel the paranoia creep into her.

(What if she’s next?)

She can’t bear to see her best friend rot away because of the orders which they cannot disobey, that they have to submit to, with no word of complaint lest they feel the wrath of their masters. 

(So she simmers quietly, anger and concern giving her the strength to wait and plan. )

When the coast is clear, she strikes and smuggles her friend to safety, telling her to run  
.  
She remembers eyes that slowly start to ignite with the brief embers of life – spring had once again sprung to life in Diona’s eyes. 

She runs, and Naevia prays to whatever gods will hear her to keep her Diona safe.

iv.

The roar of the crowd is deafening, laughing and jeering at the pathetic dogs that were known as slaves – runaways, whores, the whole lot of them – that were cowering in the sands of the arena. Naevia is silent, cloaked in a shawl that is paper thin and does nothing to protect her from the sun’s vicious glares. 

Her blood runs cold when she sees the familiar head of dark ringlets, hair tumbling and eyes that once again held the look of someone half dead – eyes that were the color of mint that will rot in a matter of seconds, forever disintegrating as they lock eyes, blood growing colder as each second passes.

Diona smiles, bloodied and bruised with the shackles that tie her down and drag her soul into the fiery pits of Pluto’s home – yet she looks up and smiles, smiles at her friend who can only smile back and nod.

They know the end is near, but they don’t let go of the link that was always there, consisting of soft words and kisses that were in the dead of the night, of arms touching and fingers laced together.

They had a bond, an invisible tether that was as soft as a bird’s wing. 

One last smile, and a nod.

v.

With each kill she laughs in the face of death, laughs at the chains that imprisoned her, of all who have violated her, ripped her innocence from her. 

She laughs because she is no longer broken nor is she weak and stumbling over her own two feet, screaming at each and every twig snapping as she runs in the forest.

She waits and hunts, taking one Roman life for each of those who have fallen before – for Diona, for Mira, for Aurelia, for those whose faces she cannot remember, whose names flash before her eyes as she sends another fuck to the afterlife, to get torn to shreds by those who are not with them in the present. 

She laughs, because the sword has become an extension of herself, a faithful companion whose bite never faltered as she ran forth to battle, screaming and yelling and letting the blood hit her face, tangle in her hair. She sees a distant blur from the corner of her eye – yellow and tan and a savage howl on her lips - and she laughs because it can only be Saxa, just as wild and fierce as the day Agron had brought the Germans back to their camp, where languages and tensions had risen until the dam had been broken and it was wine and merriment that had clouded their minds way back when. 

She remembers Mira, kindhearted and strong, with arms as long as a willow tree’s, yet she was as strong as a oak. If it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t have succeeded – would not have survived for as long as they have for the time being, against all odds. It was Mira who had lit the match to start the raging inferno that had been Spartacus’ rebellion. Naevia laughs and roars before sending another Roman to his death.

She dances a familiar dance, one that Crixus had taught her, one that Saxa and Mira had perfected with her, a dance with death, a dance with an old familiar friend.

(Who is with you)  
Death. 

vi. 

Chadara had been quite the character, all smiles and lips, sweet kisses and graceful fucks and it wasn’t the wine that was speaking for Saxa who had caught the other woman’s eye and flashed a smirk at her. She had no preference when it came to sex, and she had already proved herself no weakling when it came to the men in the camp. Chadara however, caught her eye with her sunlight-tinged hair, all graceful smiles and sweet nothings that she couldn’t quite get – because she’d flash a smile at just about anyone and Saxa could feel her blood pooling low, curling and coiling in her stomach - couldn’t quite understand because the spoken word was like harsh sand and shit against her throat.

Body language however, was completely different. It was everything from calculating the enemy’s next move to landing the perfect strike to send the fucker to the afterlife. She laughs, as she’s shoved against the wall and Chadara laces their hands together, lips wet and hot against her own and she figures that language is not needed – they can dance the night away and the gasps that she hears from the other woman makes her laugh, low and throaty and she finds herself drawn to this little treasure amongst the shit of their rebel camp. 

And if Chadara was worried, she can certainly fuck better than any Gaul can, that much Saxa knew.

vii. 

She had watched Naevia grow from the scared little broken girl that they had rescued from the mines to a tempest of fury and hatred. She had watched her grow, watch her tend to Mira’s cold body on top of that god forsaken mountain, Vesuvius and she can’t help but laugh as she pits the two Roman fucks against each other. 

Yet there is a nagging feeling in her stomach and she knows what they are doing is wrong. Perhaps it is because she was snatched away and tossed into a cage with her fellow kin that she never got to fully experience the games which the Romans so enjoyed in their precious arena that was no more. Perhaps it is why she watches from afar, with the boy Nasir – no, he’s not a boy, a man in his own right, a wildcat to her wolf – and Gannicus who tries to reason but what reasoning is there for past demons that haunt you in the night and make you wake up in cold sweat, with nothing to hold on to except the fact that you still draw breath . 

She watches, wondering what Mira would say if she would see the woman who stood before her now, black and blue and death’s own incarnate. 

She laughs and drinks more wine. 

viii.

Perhaps she knew what she was doing, the newly recruited slave her.

She was sharp, she’d give her that. Kore was her name, and she was able to wrap the Romans around her finger, with a smile and a press of flesh against one’s own body. Perhaps she would be an asset, perhaps she would be of some use for them.

Nothing like a little bit of wine to loosen the tongue and to make the iridescent fabric slowly slip off, leaving her lips a path to trail fiery kisses and hear the words that could be spoken in the privacy of a tent – she laughs – rather than in the confines of a godforsaken ludus. She laughs because this Kore is a fiery one.

She reminds her of an archer with molten eyes and olive skin who saved them all, and gave them a chance at freeing their fellow brothers and sisters from their chains. 

Perhaps, there is something more to this pretty face that she’ll figure out sometime soon.

Before, she could not speak the common tongue, for it was like lizards that scrambled over her tongue, claws and skin dragging and tearing her mouth – yet now she can talk almost as if she knew how to speak from birth. 

She’d keep an eye on this one, this Kore. 

Perhaps they could use her to their advantage, the Romans’ little plaything.


	2. Let Her Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is iron and gold with the copper red that gleams with steel as the city is plagued by madness

i.  
It’s a wonder – how they have yet to fall and yet it seems the roar of the rebels is everything that she hears after Gannicus tells her to bring the leftover Roman shits to Spartacus – and yet, she nods and bows down to the words that the man on the hill orders because he fucking freed her and she’ll be in his debt till the last breath leaves her throat and she won’t disobey – so when she darts out and hears the roars there’s a small shred of panic and fear in her but she won’t let that get to her, not when she has a duty to Spartacus and she’d slit her throat first before disobeying.

(Even in death she’ll storm the afterlife and slaughter the lives of the roman fucks who wronged them all but for now she’ll stick to her knives and straw colored hair and the snarl that is on her lips) 

It’s when the two rebels that block her path piss her off and mock her for aiding the Romans that she loses it and moves in for the power play – moves and shoves them up against the wall, her daggers warm in her hand and cold against their sweaty fat necks – she’s no weakling, they know that – and yet they deem her some fickle little thing, a weak woman whose only purpose was to fuck and please and be bound by loyalty and duty to Gannicus.

She laughs and snarls and it’s as if there are wolves in the air that howl as she spins this way and that, threatening and lethal and fuck the gods she has an order to fulfill.

She can hear the Romans whimper behind her and she flashes them a halfhearted smile – it’s not like she actually cared for them, not really but orders were orders so she obeyed them. 

She moves forth, eyes hard and cold and she’s ready to spill the blood of her brothers if it means that the shits move out of her way and she can get to Spartacus to get these sheep off of her back.

She never did like being threatened or backed into a corner.

(Never back a wolf into a corner – it will resort to fighting and lunging and fighting its way to the death if provoked) 

ii.  
She had noticed the little slave girl again - she never quite liked her, not with how she kept on mooning over Gannicus – but she did give her a nod of acknowledgement. She blended into the background, like a mouse.

Perhaps there was some use of her, after all, she was the one who had told them as to what Laeta was doing, and perhaps that had shed light on a few clouded things in her mind.

Passing, she gives her a nod and the other slinks back into the shadows, a timid smile on her face.

(It is a start) 

Laughing, Saxa makes a note to herself to get to know the girl properly – not like some woman to fuck but a proper woman – like a companion of sorts.

(Perhaps she’s reminded of Mira, strong as a willow even in her last moments and it’s because of that fuck Nemetes that she isn’t with them now but perhaps she can train the little mouse to learn how to bite. ) 

Saxa smiles to herself and goes to see if the rest of the city hasn’t pissed itself with blood and shit.

iii.

She is cloaked in shawls and scarves and delicate bracelets and necklaces that have no value to her – at least, not anymore – red copper hair that is hidden and footsteps as silent as the shadows that cover the city at night. She is like a prophet, a messiah to her people, to the fallen city that is covered with blood and shit and piss and hunger.

It is the hunger that she fears the most, for the bread-maker and his wife who is with child – she fears for them and the few that still manage to hold onto life with the scarce morsels of bread that she manages to smuggle to them.

She hides and hopes that she can see them alive and fed until Crassus comes and liberates them , rids them of the demons that have plagued their city.

She prays and hopes and snarls at the rebel king Spartacus and yet her voice is stolen when he poises his sword – such a delicate gleaming thing and yet she knows it can sever her head off of her shoulders and then there will be all hell to pay – and is subdued and yet she hopes.

She hopes and prays and perhaps the gods will grant her a prayer.

(Perhaps they will turn from her as they have turned from the rebels that are like the damned)


	3. Iron Howl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly and slowly, death creeps forward but the wolves fight back.

I.

The sound of feet pounding on the ground reaches her ears before her eyes see their presence and the air seems to stand still .

(The earth seems to tremble , as if it was cowering in fear)

It feels wrong (like there's a demon lurking in the shadows), and there is a acrid taste in her mouth as the hairs on the back of her neck raise up and she unshealthes her knives, before the word escapes her lips, clawing its way out of her throat like a rat might scramble its way out of a sewage tunnel and the gates of hell seem to open up .

_"Romans!"_

ii.

The cool of the rose water soothes her nerves as she watches the dirt slowly slip off of her skin and it's as if she is reborn, all shiny and glistening in a gown of red that is almost the color of her hair.

She doesn't expect to be carted off like a whore to a backstabing snake whose name is Herocleo but it seems as if the Emperator has no qualms about this.

She realizes , that perhaps this is what Spartacus is trying to stop, to free all people from chains and hackles to not be forced and imprisoned just because of who has more denarii or who has more political strength. 

Perhaps that is why she doesn't go quietly, muffled screams and shouts with flailing limbs in attempt to break free from the pirates' hold on her .

iii.

She doesn't know what pain is, never having to deal with it because of the money that her family and husband have had . She has known silks and flowers with jewels embroidered in her hair, not cold damp dirt and hunger to keep her company in a place where she doesn't belong in, where death prowls the street at every waking corner.

(It is as if she is Pluto and Persephone rolled into one and there are pomegranite seeds in her hands to entice and devour and most of all, condemn)

Fire was never something to coax and tame - it is wild and unpredictable and if you pair it with metal it eats it like a drug, heating it up so that perhaps the two can dance togther in a deadly tango . 

(Add flesh and the screams of a victim and you have yourselves a feast) 

She doesn't think twice before reaching for the iron and stabbing it through Herocleo's throat - she was cornered and had nowhere to escape to, with him alive.

(Even a peaceful woman can turn into a she-wolf if provoked)

She understands why the rebellion fights for what it does, it is why she holds on to her wound until they have reached the northern ridge, and she slips and starts to close her eyes but there are a pair of familiar warm arms and a raggedy purple cloak that seems to be a welcome sight and she thinks she can continue fighting, but perhaps now she needed a little rest as the cold winds howl and death was coming.


	4. Sheepskin Fangs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are arrows tinged with poison and doe-eyes laced with malice with a bit of bark and bite to top off the main course.

i.

She walks through the stone walls of the villa and marvels at the familiar touches and sounds of comfort - it seems as if she is walking in a dream, laced with poppies and hyacinths, that seem to whistle her name in the wind as the pale yellows and orange hues of her dress caress her skin.

(It is almost like how Marcus touches her, feather-light and firm and _warm_ and perhaps he whispers words of love into her ear and yet, she knows she is tainted by the boy who has twisted love and hate into something abominable, something wretched and horrid that smells of death and decay, of fear , of trapped walls and a collar that seems to weigh her down despite never having to have worn one before in her life.) 

She dreams of idle days, where she is far away from prying eyes and hands, away from the barking orders and trumpet sounds that scream 'War' and yet she can't help but be drawn to them all the same.

She can see the rebel camps, from their place up above the rest of those who inhabit the city and yet she can't help but marvel at the sound of the sea and the ever loving caress of a whisper that the winds seem to carry - cold and bitter, and something of home.

ii.

When she leaves the city walls, she is as helpless as a hare trapped in a hunter's carefully thought out net, bundled in grey wool and sheepskin and it doesn't really suit her - her complexion is more suited towards the sunny, warm colors something akin to the sun.

It is a sun that glares down on them and laughs mercilessly, doing nothing to help warm the feeble cloaks that do nothing to brace themselves against the cold winds that batter her frame and she wonders why these people fight - why they continue on like a pack of dogs, loyal to no one but each other and their ringleader , a man whom they can call 'King' and yet he is as mortal as each and every one of them.

(Yet , she senses he stands a god before them, or perhaps, it is the whisper of the wind and the dream that she has of a woman with ebony long hair, ringlets that cascade to her shoulders and a white gown that twists and turns and it's as if she is Venus herself, come out to play with the wind and the stone. She gazes into the eyes of the woman who has a bloody collar on her neck, a smile that is almost porcelain and yet there is something sinister about her, something that carries a poison in it, as if there is a clawing shadow of death that lurks in the folds of her gown and yet, she hears the name whispered once to her and she feels a sense of duty , as if her prayers to the gods have been answered, or at least, they were being heard, or even acknowledged.)

She wonders if her dreams are something as a result of the blizzard swooping in like a falcon to rip and tear them all to shreds with its claws and yet she cannot shake the name off of her lips, or the curiosity that follows after it dances along her lips.

_Sura_

It is a mantra that repeats itself in her head.

_Sura Sura Sura_

She hears a voice whisper in her head and a woman's smile pressed upon her brow as she closes her eyes. 

( _Kill them all_ ) 

iii.

She has slowly learned how to conquer her demons, one by one. 

She has had hands firm as stone and steel sculpt a warrior out of a broken, waking shell of a girl. She has returned from the dead, from the abyss that haunted her only on the darkest of nights, where no light was to be found, no gentle kiss nor caress set to ease worries and rid mind of damning thoughts. 

(She has had a unsteady hand grow into a fist with the power to weild a sword and sever a man's head from his shoulders (it is almost natural, like breathing) )

They lead the siege, fill the trench with the bodies of the fallen and she knows that their blood now flows in her blood, that their will to live is fighting and rejuvenating her, giving her that push, that determination to stay and fight and live.

_Breathe for a moment , just to feel alive_

She fires an arrow and she thinks back to an old friend with ebony hair and a warm smile, who was like a sister, protecting her from the raiders, hiding her while they ran like jackrabbits through the woods, determined to give her life up in order to save a broken girl if needed be. 

She makes sure that the arrow hits its target.

(There is no room for mistakes, not whilst a steady hand fires the arrow.)

Mira taught her well. 

iv. 

She watches Naevia grow, has watched her since that day on Vesuvius, where she watched Mira fall and give them hope - unite them in a way that she didn't expect them to be united.

(Who would have thought, the blood spilled by a sister and her burial ground was to be a mountain filled with vines that bounded us together, set forth a domino effect of rage and monstrosity) 

She watches her as the wind howls and a man whose very scent gives off the stench of a rat, of a sinner, of a man who was no better than the Roman fucks that they were rebelling against.  
(The tensions were raised higher and higher each and every moment it seemed that he was to win and Naevia to be sent to the after-life ) 

She is ready to strike if need be, but instead her snarls of warning are transformed into howls of glee as she watches the little girl piece herself together, broken pieces of a porcelain doll stuck together with hatred and demons, with a dash of iron and fire thrown into the mix.

She wonders if Mira can see them, a legion in its own for now, an army filled with blood thirsty souls and hordes that are just waiting to go for the kill.  
She figures that they will need to train more people, and yet she thinks that the little girl Naevia can teach them a trick or two as to how to survive.

(It is a dog eat dog world, but they are both she-wolves and know how to survive the cold)


End file.
